Page:On the forfeiture of property by married women.djvu/13

9 the measure to a system of protection orders would probably be nothing worse than to reduce it to a nullity. Indeed, in that shape it might do a small quantity of good. But if turned into a system of settlements, it would indeed be a serious aggravation of existing mischief. Here again I do not understand (for it has never been explained), what machinery is contemplated, nor whether it is proposed to make a universal settlement by Act of Parliament, or only to seize and settle property in those cases in which a protection order has been obtained. The only difference between the two cases would be that in the latter the Act would have little scope, and therefore would do comparatively little harm.

The plan, doubtless, is suggested by the course usually taken in marriage settlements, and would naturally be one of the first things to occur to lawyers more familiar with such arrangements than with the short and simple annals of the poor. I will not here discuss the policy of the ordinary marriage settlement for the rich. I do not admire it, but it is not necessary for the argument to take so wide a range. It is sufficient to say, that for one rich person affected by the measure there will be a thousand poor; that it is, in fact, a measure for the poorer classes of society; that it will leave the power of settlement by private contract unaffected for those who choose it; that the poorer classes do not choose it; and that to force it on them would be a great hardship.

How are such settlements to work? In what custody is the fund to be placed? Is the settlement to embrace earnings? And if not earnings, then savings from earnings? Are the children to have a right of calling their mother to account to show what she has laid by, or what she has received by gift from others, or by succession? Whom will you get to act as trustees?

All these questions must be answered before the proposal can float. The only answer I have heard to any of them is a suggestion by some gentleman that municipal corporations might act as trustees—a suggestion which can do little more than provoke a smile. Yet without machinery the plan must break down.

Supposing, however, it could be carried into effect—every little gift, legacy, or windfall, would have somehow to be put into settlement, unless we place a limit of value below which